I am in the process of assembling a list of music to be played at my funeral/wake. I remember reading about Anselm Adorne’s funeral arrangements… how many ells of cloth for him to be wrapped in, later to be donated to the poor (note to self, blecch)… how many prayers to be said by how many holy people, which pieces of property went off the the church to grease his putative entrance into the life of the redeemed, etc etc.
You start off, when you make funeral arrangements, with a very comfortable and in some ways ludicrous assumption, which is that there is going to be a civil society to look after all that, and relatives who won’t just be rolling you into the nearest convenient hole.
Having acknowledged that it is at best morbid and at worst a wretched waste of time to think about it, here is a brief selection of the music I want played at my funeral (not in order):
John Hiatt’s The River. Very elegiac and appropriate.
Bill Nelson’s Flaming Desire. Guess that’s more for the wake, being a quite secular song. Bill’s got a nice blog, or did the last time I checked.
Enya’s Crazy Day (also for the wake).
Meshell Ndegeocello’s God Shiva.
Dead Can Dance Saltarello (of course) and Song of Sophia.
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Sheryl Crow’s Every Day is a Winding Road.
David Sylvian and Robert Fripp God’s Monkey.
Radiohead’s I Might be Wrong.
Oysterhead’s Oz is ever Floating.
The Cult’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.
Just Blue – Can’t remember the artists, it’s a cylinder record at my parent’s place, but it has quite the most remarkable clarinet solo on it I have ever heard.
Anyway, that’s enough to go on with. I guess most of that is stuff for the wake… I should sort through the list at some point.
In family news, those anxious to hear about Zeek! should be at ease. He in fact had no rotten teeth, and merely needed a good cleaning. Zeek’s attitude towards awakening from having his teeth cleaned and sitz platz glands cleaned out was to unlimber his appetite (I didn’t get breakfast, you know) and eat everything he could con us into putting in his bowl.
Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Vet, I’m going to eat like a front end loader, CAUSE I CAN.
Kira’s vanished. There was lightning this morning, so she will probably not be in a hurry to come home, she’s terrified of lightning and probably cowering somewhere.
Mike’s bringing Heroes of the East over. If he says it’s his favourite Kung Fu movie of all time it should be pretty spectacular. We will probably be turning his laptop into a viewer again. Must remind Keith to prep the speakers.
Off to Sally’s in Maple Ridge to get the bustier and the pants fitted at 10 this am, then back into town to do a food shop (Paul says he’s coming with), and then if it quits raining some yard work and if it doesn’t some long overdue dejunking. Paul has made it quite clear that something, hopefully a long list of something, has gotta go; the clutter is increasingly a mental health issue for him and I can’t really argue the point.
I am seriously considering posting an open letter to the VP HR at my work to this blog, but I imagine the sane coworkers who read this will hold my hand, look deeply into my eyes over the lunch table and say, “You rahhhhlly don’t want to do that, do you?” and I’ll probably sigh and agree. It’s going to be great though, I was taking as my text the Clue Train manifesto and the definition of a court jester I found in a scholarly book from the University of Chicago. It was going to be a masterpiece, honest.
Well, I’m burning daylight. I have food to prep, dishes to do, and a very grumpy husband to placate. He’s spent the last two days of his days off busting ass on fixing yet another rotten spot in the basement (I guess I didn’t mention the flood in my blog), and what with that and teens at home (Katie busted ass too I might add, she washed the kitchen floor yesterday among other cleaning activities may the saints be praised) and hauling Zeek to the vet, why, he hardly had any time to go flying with Dan P. Funny that. The kids and I went downstairs to watch Star Wars – Episode IV, thank you very much – and about 1/3 of the way through the movie the sound track mostly deregistered from the video with F_CKING HILARIOUS results. Imagine, HOWL HOWL WHURF SNORG GARGLE ‘rescue!’ HOWL WOWWOW BRRRRRUMMMM, while they’re about to shoot their way into the trash pile. I laughed so hard I nearly hurt myself. Keith and Katie were laughing too. Then Keith said he could fix it and I disbelieved him and he did so fix it. So there. But I think the tape is pooched now. Then I came upstairs and Tom L. was sitting at my dining room table, along with Dan P and Paul, who had called Tom L. to come collect his trailer as we had filled it with junk. Next time we’ll MAKE him put the tarp on the damned thing. Long about 4 I heard the rain and groaned. With all that Drywall in there the rain will go SPONGE and the tipping fee will be much higher. Note to self, Tom L. needs a trailer tarp. I have a bunch of phone calls to make today and I’m feeling roughly as sociable as a Trappist monk, to quote Dunnett. Oh well.
